News

For a season of TV that delivers, “Glow” Season 2 has a soundtrack to match.

It wouldn’t be a story set in the ’80s without at least one needle drop like The Human League’s “Don’t You Want Me” (though this writer held out a tiny bit of hope they’d somehow use the “working as a waitress in a cocktail bar” remix). But like the show it’s backing, this season’s collection of songs is a nice bit of zagging where other series covering the era typically zig.

A non-album Madonna track? An incredible Aretha Franklin cover? End credits songs from The Jesus and Mary Chain and Yaz to open up the season? A blink-and-miss-it appearance from ’80s punk band The F.U.’s? That’s a solid list, even before you get to the deep-ish Genesis cuts.

Don't expect live action remakes of Moana, Frozen and Home On The Range from Disney anytime soon...

Disney’s clearly struck gold with its line of live action reboots of its catalogue of animated movies. This past weekend, the new take on Beauty & The Beast has seen a fresh lorryload of cash pour into its coffers. And already, the likes of Dumbo, Aladdin, The Little Mermaid, Mulan and The Lion King are being lined up to film in the next year or two.

But there are films you shouldn’t expect to get the live action treatment. Frozen, for one, The Princess & The Frog and Moana as well. Because the studio has ruled out remaking any of its animated films that came out after the year 2000. Chatting to Vulture, the president of motion picture production at Walt Disney Studios, a man called Sean Bailey, confirmed that “we

Close-Up is a column that spotlights﻿ films now playing on Mubi. Leo McCarey's The Awful Truth (1937) is showing February 13 - March 15, 2017 in the United Kingdom in the series The Rom Com Variations.Leo McCarey’s 1937 screwball classic The Awful Truth is the epitome of a sub-genre dubbed by philosopher Stanley Cavell the “comedy of remarriage.” In the film, husband and wife Jerry and Lucy Warriner (Cary Grant and Irene Dunne) succumb to their marital suspicions and embark on an easier-said-than-done divorce. He returns home from an unspecified dalliance, complete with fake Florida tan (ever the gentleman, he bronzes so as to save Lucy the embarrassment of getting asked why her husband looks pale after spending time in the sun), but upon his arrival, Lucy herself is nowhere to be found. She must be with her Aunt Patsy, Jerry assures his guests, that is until Aunt Patsy (Cecil Cunningham) shows up sans niece.

Alan Menken is far from being a newcomer at the Oscars, but this year the composer could be nominated or even win for a venture into the new territory of R-rated films. Having usually created award-worthy songs for Disney, Menken connected himself with a more mature project with Sausage Party and stands to win an Oscar for a song in a movie about weenies and buns.

This year Sausage Party’s “The Great Beyond” (which would be shared with Chris Lennertz for the animated venture written by and starring Seth Rogen) is considered a major threat in the best original song race, according to this site’s namesake Scott Feinberg. In the past, Menken has been nominated a grand total of 19 times with eight of those being wins. Let’s take a look back at what

Hollywood can be a cutthroat industry, even for some of the town's most beloved stars. While Sarah Jessica Parker has found huge success on both the big and small screen, the actress has also experienced a few surprises along the way. In fact, the Sex and the City star endured not one but two firings from animated movies. "I was fired from Antz, that animated movie. And I was fired from Home on the Range, that other animated movie," she shared on Howard Stern's SiriusXM show Tuesday morning. "Apparently I was a bad ant." She continued, "I can't remember which movie fired me first. The first time they were like, 'we're going in a different...

Hollywood is vexed by the lack of home runs at the box office this summer. But there is a bright spot amidst countless forecasts of trouble for the film industry. Two of the biggest smashes of the season so far, Disney’s “Finding Dory” and Universal Studios’ “The Secret Life of Pets,” are a reminder that animation is the one genre that seems to be unstoppable at the movies.

Beyond their reliance on pixelated performances, “Dory” and “Pets” share another similarity. They are both stories centered on animals that yammer about their personal lives, bicker and act like human beings. Against a questionable year of ticket sales, where even movie stars like Johnny Depp and George Clooney have come up short, audiences seem to prefer their personalities with tails.

These cuddly creatures are serving as an antidote to dark times in the world. Some executives in Hollywood are starting to

NBCU parent Comcast’s $3.8 billion investment in DreamWorks Animation, announced Thursday, is a bold bid to challenge Disney in the family film space. But the studio is being careful to stress that the new acquisition isn’t intended to edge out Meledandri, whose Illumination Entertainment is responsible for the studio’s “Despicable Me” franchise.

“The model that we’re trying to use is John Lasseter,” said Shell, referencing the Pixar co-founder who oversees the creative direction of both Pixar and Disney Animation.

“Chris has built Illumination from scratch, so we want to make sure that whatever we do with Chris, we don’t lose the special sauce that made that place so fantastic,” he added. “The number one most important thing

With its back to a wall, the Walt Disney Company shelled out $7.6 billion in 2006 to buy Pixar, the animation powerhouse behind “Toy Story” and “Finding Nemo.”

This weekend, the smashing success of “Zootopia” confirmed the wisdom of that decade-old acquisition. It continues a string of box office hits such as “Tangled,” “Big Hero 6,” “Wreck-It Ralph” and “Frozen” that might not have been possible had Disney not absorbed Pixar and its brain trust.

Although they were released under the Walt Disney Animation Studios banner, Pixar’s DNA — a double helix of artistic daring and technological innovation — is evident in all of these films. That makes sense given that as part of the Pixar purchase, the company’s leaders Ed Catmull and John Lasseter assumed responsibility for all of Disney’s animated output.

“What they have focused on in each of these films is having an original voice and an original story,

Disney’s “Zootopia” scored the fourth-biggest March opening ever, debuting to $73.7 million over the weekend.

The animated story about a rabbit who joins the police force ranks as the biggest Disney Animation launch (though not the best Pixar debut), outstripping “Frozen,” the 2012 blockbuster that bowed to $67.4 million. With no major family film opening until “The Jungle Book” lands on April 15, “Zootopia” is well positioned to be the de facto choice for moviegoers with children for the next month.

“There’s an absence of competition,” said Dave Hollis, Disney’s distribution chief. “We are set up to have a big, big run.”

Disney did not release a budget, but most animated films cost in excess of $100 million. “Zootopia” screened in 3,827 locations.

Overseas, where “Zootopia” has been playing for three weeks, the film added another $63.4 million to its haul, pushing its global total to $232.5 million. The film continues a sterling comeback run for Disney Animation,

Back when we first saw the IndieGoGo campaign on ComicMix for Hullabaloo we were freaking out. A Steampunk animated girl superhero in the hand-drawn 2D Disney style…sign us up! So, imagine our happiness when we happened to run into Hullabaloo creator James Lopez at Long Beach Comic Expo.

Well, first we had to buy all sorts of awesome art from his table, but then we got down to business asking all of our questions about the collection of 4 short animated films that will soon (but not soon enough) be on the festival circuit and on DVD.

What we didn’t know is that James Lopez has for a long time been one of our favorite Disney animators. He was the animator for Timon in The Lion King and the farm animals in Maddy’s favorite movie — Home On The Range (store that away for Tweeks trivia later on). He’s also worked on Pocahontas,

Over the weekend, Disney showed off some of the most-anticipated movies of the near-future at its mammoth D23 convention, and the studio's announcement of Star Wars–themed additions to two of its amusement parks sent shockwaves through the world of entertainment. But a few days later, we've got a handful of questions prompted by that dazzling lineup. Here are five things we can't help but wonder in D23's wake. Is Disney Animation Outpacing Pixar? A decade ago, when Walt Disney Animation Films was putting out forgettable products like Home on the Range and Chicken Little, it seemed the house that Walt built was destined to live in the shadow of creative upstart Pixar. How surprising, then, to watch as the Disney Animation films shown at this year’s D23 got consistently better reactions than the slate of sequels that Pixar had to offer. Disney Animation brought clips and songs

Between 1937 and 2014, Walt Disney Animation Studios has released no less than 54 theatrical films, many of which are regarded as true classics of the medium. And naturally, some of them are less beloved. For every "Sleeping Beauty" or "The Little Mermaid," there's also a "Home on the Range" or "Atlantis: The Lost Empire."

That said, some of Disney's animated efforts tend to get a bad rap. Maybe not every one their 54 films is solid gold, but there are some that deserve more acclaim and financial success than they received. Here are our top ten underrated Disney movies.

When the 87th Oscar nominations for best animated feature were announced Jan. 15 and excluded The Lego Movie, the Internet exploded with confusion and disbelief. The film, which was largely expected by many pundits to win the Oscar, was a critical (holding a 96 percent positive score on Rotten Tomatoes) and commercial hit (earning $257.7 million stateside). It also earned Golden Globe and BAFTA Award nominations and won the Critics’ Choice Award for best animated film. It seemingly had everything going in its favor, so what went wrong?

One sentiment is that the animation branch of the Academy, which chooses the nominations, admire hand-drawn traditional animation and want to celebrate and preserve a fading craft rather than nominate solely computer animated and digital films.

The first computer animated film was Toy Story, which was released in 1995 and was nominated for original screenplay, original song and original score. Director

With the passing of every year comes the arrival and departure of an unfathomable number of films from theatres around the globe where they earned either a lot of or precious little screen time, depending on the circumstances. Notwithstanding smaller budgeted, independent-minded motion pictures that find unexpectedly impressive legs to remain in theatrical exhibition for longer than most would have foreseen (surely including the exhibitors themselves in many cases), it is safe to argue that for the most part, the movies that are awarded the most screenings rooms and screening times are the big budget blockbusters.

There exists a myriad of reasons why it often feels so terribly easy to aim criticisms at these so-called motion picture events. Some of them are related to the perceived quality, others have to do what certain cinephiles with attuned tastes expect from their movie going experiences as patrons. Movies for which so much

Spellbound, the animated test movie from Amazon Studios features five original songs. We asked producer Kevin Bannerman (Anastasia, Ice Age) about the role the songs played and how they shaped the film.

How do songs help shape a movie?

It helps shape the movie’s tone. They can often show screenwriters a side of the character that hasn’t been explored. With a lyricist, the characters can develop a sense of humor and personality through their songs.

What song is the most pivotal in the movie?

Each song is unique in its own way because each individual song has its own special reason for being. “New Breeze Blowing” is important because it takes the relationship between Lottie and Bastien to new heights (pun intended). But “The Road to Riches” is just as important for several reasons: it gives us an insight into Horace, it allows Lottie and Horace to have

For those who don't check in enough, don't miss these highlights from the week. It was a slow week, I know, but next week will be madness: the Podcast returns, the Smackdown (finally), The Letter (1940) for "Best Shot" (join us!), a cool behind the scenes interview and more for Easter Week including the beginning of the Tribeca Film Festival.

Tim here, to celebrate, and by “celebrate”, I mean “lament” the ten-year anniversary this month of the film that more or less killed traditional animation at Disney. Back in April, 2004, all that anybody could talk about was anything else imaginable other than Home on the Range, a Western comedy feature the voices of Roseanne, Judi Dench, and Jennifer Tilly that during its opening weekend only managed to scrape itself up to the #4 spot at the box office. This was to be expected. Disney had already announced prior to the release of Brother Bear the previous fall that once they cleared out the pipeline, they’d be abandoning 2D animation forever, and given the quality of most of their work in the 2000s, nobody could really be terribly offended by that decision for any strong reason other than nostalgia. Let me put it this way: I, in 2004, was easily the biggest Disney lover I knew.

Rumors and possible casting choices for "Star Wars: Episode VII" have started to leak out, with no piece more important than who will be taking the lead in the new movie. And while we were able to report that five actors are possibilities for the lead good-guy Jedi, only one choice is the right choice: Jesse Plemons. Here's why: Home On The Range Plemons has shown an insane amount of range in his performances, from ...

For every animated movie that gets made, there are dozens more that never make it. Mark looks at some failed Disney projects...

In the age of the internet, Hollywood studios are much quicker to announce the projects they have in development than they used to be. Now that the demand is there, there's a huge turnover of movie-related news every day, and if you follow it in any significant way, there are probably a whole bunch of projects that you've heard about, maybe even gotten excited about, that never came to fruition.

Still, it's not only via the easier availability of such information that we know about projects that never came to be. At a studio like Disney, projects will get as far as being fully developed in animatic form before falling apart, and the artefacts left behind from such abridged projects have made for some fascinating reading.

It's taken the Walt Disney Company more than 70 years to bring Hans Christian Andersen's "The Snow Queen" to the big screen. Originally conceived by Walt himself in the studio's post-war period, it was eventually attempted (and canceled) at least a half-dozen times in the decades that followed, taking a number of different permutations (including, briefly, a Disneyland attraction and a potential Pixar film).

But now it's here. And it was worth the wait.

The story of Anna (Kristen Bell) and Elsa (Idina Menzel), two characters from a vaguely Scandinavian storybook kingdom who find themselves locked into an eternal winter after Elsa unwittingly unleashes her frosty powers (in glorious 3D, no less).

IMDb.com, Inc. takes no responsibility for the content or accuracy of the above news articles, Tweets, or blog posts. This content is published for the entertainment of our users only. The news articles, Tweets, and blog posts do not represent IMDb's opinions nor can we guarantee that the reporting therein is completely factual. Please visit the source responsible for the item in question to report any concerns you may have regarding content or accuracy.